PLA Blog

Republished from Jan Sanders’ September/October Public Libraries “From the President” column.

Welcome to autumn — my favorite time of the year! As a child, I loved fall, as it signaled the coming of three wonderful events: 1) the hot, dry days of summer on a dusty farm in Missouri were coming to a close; 2) school was about to start, so I’d see my friends and return to the environment I especially loved; and 3) my birthday was near! Admittedly, some of the excitement has dwindled — especially the birthday celebration part — but I still see this season as a time for new beginnings, and I am still excited by those possibilities.

I hope you have ordered your copy of the newest PLA publication, Libraries Prosper with Passion, Purpose, and Persuasion! A PLA Toolkit for Success, introduced at the 2007 ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., this past June. It’s a terrific advocacy tool that enables you to use templates, suggestions, samples, and handouts to help library staff, trustees, Friends, and community members become more educated, enthusiastic advocates for libraries. One of the strongest sections gives suggestions on return on investment for libraries in a given community, suggesting how you can create similar values statements. You can use all of it, or part of it. In addition, the resources section gives a step-by-step guide to furthering your advocacy work. I hope you’ll take a look.

Another particularly exciting consideration is the announcement of plans for PLA’s 12th National Conference, PLA 2008, which will take place March 25 - 29, 2008, in Minneapolis. I visited this city just a few weeks ago, and am delighted with the possibilities. I know many of you will be making arrangements to join us for what is historically “the best conference for public libraries.” Visit www.placonference.org for details. As always, there will be stellar programs, numerous opportunities to network and meet with colleagues, and top-notch general session speakers. The work in planning for national conference goes on, as you can probably imagine, for most of the time between the meetings. It takes more than a full year to receive and process all the program suggestions. A large, varied, and strong PLA committee works tirelessly to make sure that you receive as much for your registration dollar as is possible. If you or someone in your organization can only attend one conference this year, this is the one! And this year, we’re offering a special treat. Because we’re in their home town, 3M (one of PLA’s Partners) is stepping up with a wonderful opportunity. You will remember that the Leadership Development Task Force (LDTF), chaired by PLA past-president Luis Herrera, put forth recommendations on how PLA should move forward in creating leadership training opportunities focused on developing change agents within the profession. So, we’re presenting a one-day preconference program dealing with transformational change management. Participants will learn from private industry CEOs how to set a change strategy; what challenges are presented and how to handle them; and what innovations can be most productive in implementing, driving, and defining change. Speakers will be from 3M’s top corporate management, a group that has worked with other CEOs, such as Ritz Carlton’s leadership, for example.

How can you participate? There will be an online application process open to PLA members with at least five years of experience in supervision and decision-making and who are most able to affect change. Entries are due by November 16; approximately one hundred slots are available. The most important segment of the application will be a 250-word essay answering the questions, “What change do you want to implement?” and “What is the difference that making that change will provide?” Applications will be evaluated by LDTF members, and participants will be notified by the end of November. Visit www.placonference.org for more information.

The preconference is completely funded by 3M, including registration fees for the day as well as conference supplies, transportation from the convention center to 3M’s Innovation Center, lunch, snacks, and an evening reception to debrief the experience with other participants. We also plan to provide an opportunity for the class to come together again at the 2008 ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, California, to give progress reports on how their change implementation is working.

I sincerely hope you will think carefully about putting your name forward for this special opportunity. It’s a wonderful chance to learn from trainers who work with strong presenters from outside our own library community. So start thinking now about what you would change if you could, how you would do it, and what difference that change would make!

Jan Sanders is Director of the Pasadena (Calif.) Public Library; .

Jan is reading Hummingbird’s Daughter by Alberto Urrea and Organizational Development: A Josey-Bass Reader. She is rereading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand for a discussion group.

Tags: From the President, Jan Sanders, PLA, PLA Blog, PLA2008, publications

This entry was posted on Friday, November 9th, 2007 at 8:28 am and is filed under PLA Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.